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Enterprise-class PostgreSQL database vendor EnterpriseDB has launched a free turnkey development environment designed to make it easier for coders to build web applications using PostgreSQL's new NoSQL capabilities.

The open source PostgreSQL project has been adding NoSQL-like features for the past couple of versions, most notably support for the JavaScript-friendly JSON data format and the JSONB binary storage format.

With its new Postgres Extended Datatype Developer Kit (PGXDK), EnterpriseDB aims to provide developers with a complete, cloud-hosted coding environment with all of the key components required to use PostgreSQL's NoSQL goodies already enabled and configured.

"Application developers need solutions that help them work faster and this Amazon AMI-based environment means they get up and running more quickly and have a much more powerful foundation to work on," Marc Linster, EnterpriseDB's senior VP of products and services, said in a canned statement.

PGXDK is available as a free instance on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and it bundles PostgreSQL 9.4 beta, a webserver, and preinstalled versions of Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Node.js, and Python to make it easy to get devs building web apps using PostgreSQL and a variety of popular tools and frameworks.

According to EnterpriseDB, PostgreSQL is often a superior choice for businesses than so-called pure NoSQL products like MongoDB or CouchBase because it offers greater flexibility in the kind of workloads it supports, while also allowing organizations to practice the kind of conventional data management they're accustomed to using with SQL databases.

The company cites research from Gartner indicating that by 2017, half of all data stored in pure NoSQL databases "will be damaging to the business due to a lack of applied information governance policies and programs."

But then, that view should come as no surprise, since PostgreSQL is EnterpriseDB's bread and butter. The company's flagship product, Postgres Plus Advanced Server, is an enterprise-tuned distribution of PostgreSQL with an additional, proprietary layer that provides Oracle compatibility, among other features.

EnterpriseDB also provides commercial consulting, installation support, training, and other services around PostgreSQL and products derived from it. From where EnterpriseDB sits, the more people using PostgreSQL – developers and companies – the better.

The company says it plans its next major update to PGXDK to come in the fall, when it will release a version with integrated support for PL/V8, which allows developers to write database queries in JavaScript. ®